


The Periods

by InnerSpectrum



Series: Mystrade is Our Division Prompts [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Mystrade is our Division FB Fic Prompts, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 20:54:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15494490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InnerSpectrum/pseuds/InnerSpectrum
Summary: Mycroft and Greg recount how they began...





	The Periods

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Mystrade is our Division FB Fic Prompts - this week's word: Rough

"The Empty Period is the time before I knew him. Before I knew I could really love and be loved, I was not one who wore his heart on his sleeve. Never have been. But I think I knew even then, the first time I laid eyes on him. And yes, I mean through a camera lens." I hope I have managed to look somewhat sheepish admitting such. It is not a feeling, let alone an expression with which I am accustomed as I continued "I could tell my brother was being, well, my brother. I knew he was harassing someone’s nerves. I did not know who until he stepped into view. His hair was more brown then, but that jaw, those eyes, the energy you gave off as you pointed a finger in my brother's face and told him off in no uncertain terms floored me. And not just that you told him off, for that happens from time to time as he grates people, but that he listened. I could tell by his body language he actually heeded your words. I immediately had to know who you were to command such magic with him."

Greg sat there quietly and waited as Mycroft spoke. He knew what was coming next.

"So, I made an appointment to see you. To give you the run down on Sherlock not realizing you already had him well in hand. Of course, I chafed at that. How dare someone think they know my brother as I do. I was trying to be at my intimidating best and you all but laughed in my face. One of the very few people not directly related to me who did not succumb to the Iceman glare. We both wanted to the same thing - to protect Sherlock from himself. Still, the two most important people in his life, until Watson came along, hit it off as wrongly as two people could. You purposely arrested one of my team in the middle of an MI5 investigation for impeding an investigation that crossed Major Crimes.  I had my minions kidnap you while jogging and drop you off in Essex without a means to get home. We were so hard on each other. Those are the years we both dubbed The Rough Period."

I watch Greg smile fondly now, but then? Only the universe knows just how furious he was. We used to call each other every other week or so just to touch based regarding Sherlock. He stopped calling, even after I had reached out. I knew how badly I messed up then. In my proclivity to prove I am not someone to be dealt lightly with, I nearly pushed away one of the few people who had actually wanted to deal with me at all.  When Sherlock was next hospitalized and Greg called me before the hospital had I was pleasantly surprised and grateful. He did not let the animosity between us get in the way of who I was to Sherlock. He knew I would want to know. Once I arrived I should have known the punch was coming, I really had pushed or rather driven the man too far. It was one hit and he got me good. Anthea flexed ready to take him down, but then stopped. She looked at me to see that I was all right. Once off the floor and ascertained that I was, she then walked up to him and shook his hand.

"She told me years later she knew then and there I was falling in love with you when I did not so much as look at you crossly for the shiner I had to walk around in China with for a week. Luckily, she had not told me so then. I was fighting against myself hard enough that I had feelings as it was becoming obvious to me. I would have fought against it harder had I thought anyone else, had guessed. When Sherrinford happened, I realize now Sherlock sent you to me hoping for this result. Still I fought it. Then the Minsk operation happened when NSY cracked in through a different door. It was perfect to me that it was your team, your deductions that cracked it. And none of it with help from me or my brother. I was so proud to watch your team do the takedown, watch you in the press conference, but we had years of so much back and forth between us by then I still I was so bad at displaying honest feelings I didn't know how to reach out to him. The best I could come up with was pastry. It was not until I caught him checking me out when I dropped my umbrella that the thought of an “us” was even a remote possibility, yet I dismissed it thinking I imagined things."

Greg had walked over to the hutch and brought out a little paper gold crown that had seen better days and a an equally old, but in slightly better condition – fève. Greg outright grins here holding the items precious to no one but the two of us as he takes over the tale.  

“Yeah, that was the start of The Sweet Period. If the galette des roi had not happened, who knows when either of us would have found a way to break the ice between us. It was so obvious in retrospect we were in love with each other. I mean two grown men acting like A-Levels using our respective offices as the school ground to act out. Myc hauled arse out my office so fast after he picked up the umbrella I knew he caught me checking him out and read my prurient thoughts. All I wanted was to get a little rough on the posh exterior of you, but did not know what you would think.  That you had not outright brought me down for ogling you gave me hope. It was weeks later, but the next time we saw each other I made my move. This fève was me taking my gut instinct in my hands and leaping with faith. I was terrified he would rebuke me, oh but that first kiss…”  Greg looks to me then, his warm brown eyes full of meaning as he bites his lower lip in memory. A lip I want nothing more than to take between my own teeth then and there, but I let him finish speaking.

“…that first kiss was _everything_. I knew you could not believe I had ordered you to kiss me. I knew you were waiting for me to pull the rug out from under you. I felt it, how tight you were and then how you responded once you realized I was for real. That I really wanted to kiss you and something in you shifted. I knew then that you had wanted this to happen as deeply as me. For the first time we were on the exact same page. We were weeks from saying the three magic words to each other. Still, while I suspected my feelings for you ran deeper than I had wanted to admit before that moment, but at that moment, that very first time when I held you in my arms, felt you against me, deep inside I knew I was already a goner.”

“Really, _mon roi_?” I grin. I know I am grinning and revel in it. That is what being in love with this man has done for me. In his presence I wear my heart on the shirtsleeves of my opening arms proudly.

“Really, _mon roi_.” He steps into my arms and issues a twist on the same order that garnered our very first kiss “By order of le roi: Kiss me right now and make it as good as that damned galette you gave me then and then kiss me again, and make it even better.”

I am more than happy to comply with my king’s command.

“Papa? Père? We’re still here you know.” A certain masculine voice groans and certain feminine voice giggles.

Oh, right. That is how this conversation got started, the twins wanting to know why we refer to certain times in our lives as _Periods_. Now they know.

Sherliolet, name after my brother and mymother, though seven minutes the younger, was a little quicker on the uptake than her fifteen-year-old brother Sherbourne, named after my brother and Greg’s father. She grabs him by the arm and hustles him off to check on some experiment they have running in the shed that their uncle challenged them, but not before her brother gives us a thumb up before leaving Greg and I alone in the living room.

“When did they get so smart about…things?” I bemoan the flight of time. “It felt like we just brought them home last week and here they are knowing when to leave us alone.”

“Because after The Empty and The Sweet this here right now is The Best Period.” Greg pulls me by the hand in the direction of the stairs.

“You skipped The Rough.” I quirk a brow at the oversight.

My husband looks at me over his shoulder with an expression that weakens me in one place and hardens me in another.

“Not if we hurry up to the bedroom.”  His gravelly voice teases.

 _The Best Period_ indeed I quickly follow him up.


End file.
